Darien Ed. Ass'n v. Board of Ed. of Town of Darien
| Decision Date | 22 February 1977 |
| Citation | 172 Conn. 434,374 A.2d 1081 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 94 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2895 DARIEN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the TOWN OF DARIEN. |
Warren W. Eginton, Stamford, with whom, on the brief, was Sarah E. Gorman, Fairfield, for appellant (defendant).
Martin A. Gould, Hartford, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before HOUSE, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and BARBER, JJ.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court vacating an arbitration award on the ground that the arbitrator exceeded his power in rendering the award.
The controversy arose when Coleman Alexa, a teacher in the Darien school system, received an evaluation of "4" on a scale of a possible "5" for the 1973-74 school year. 1 He appealed from this rating in a procedure provided for in agreements between the Darien board of education, hereinafter the board, and the Darien Education Association, hereinafter the association. The grievance went to arbitration. With the consent of the parties, the arbitrator formulated the question submitted thus: The arbitrator's award stated:
The court found that an agreement between the board and the association, which was made on March 1, 1974, required that a form "B" be filled out as part of the teacher evaluation procedure, and that one was not filled out for Alexa. The board and the association waived the use of another form because of the shortage of time to complete the 1973-74 evaluations, but they did not waive form B. The court found that the arbitrator had excused the failure of the evaluator to make out a form B for Alexa because the evaluation had to be completed in such a short time, and that the arbitrator was without authority to alter or modify the terms of the contract. The court vacated the award on the ground that the arbitrator had exceeded his power in rendering the award.
The award made no mention of form B; it is clear that the court must have examined the arbitrator's opinion in order to have discovered that the arbitrator excused its absence. The defendant claims that this was error, that a court may examine a memorandum by the arbitrator only when there is some question raised by the lack of conformity between the question submitted to arbitration and the arbitrator's award, as in Costello Construction Co. v. Teamsters Local 559, 167 Conn. 315, 355 A.2d 279; International Union v. Fafnir Bearing Co., 151 Conn. 650, 201 A.2d 656; and Niles-Bement-Pond Co. v. Amalgamated Local 405, 140 Conn. 32, 97 A.2d 898.
The defendant relies on the language in United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers v. Union Mfg. Co., 145 Conn. 285, 289, 141 A.2d 479: "The law does not recognize the right to question an award made clearly within the terms of the submission . . . on the ground that the . . . (arbitrator was) powerless to make it." That ruling was superseded, insofar as arbitration involving industry affecting interstate commerce is concerned, by United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corporation, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424, as recognized by this court in Hudson Wire Co. v. Winsted Brass Workers Union, 150 Conn. 546, 553, 191 A.2d 557. 2
The Enterprise Wheel & Car decision concerned a case in which the arbitrator's opinion was ambiguous. The award might have been based either solely on legislation, in which case the arbitrator would have exceeded his authority, or on the agreement between the parties, as interpreted with the aid of law. The United States Supreme Court held 363 U.S. p. 598, 80 S.Ct. p. 1361 that "(a) mere ambiguity in the opinion . . . which permits the inference that the arbitrator may have exceeded his authority, is not a reason for refusing to enforce the award." In dictum, however, the court stated that an arbitrator's Id., 597, 80 S.Ct., 1361.
Whether or not the award concerns an industry affecting interstate commerce, it is appropriate to follow the lead of Enterprise Wheel & Car. If the memorandum of an arbitrator revealed that he had reached his decision by consulting a ouija board, surely it should not suffice that the award conformed to the submission. However, it defeats the purpose of arbitration, which is to avoid litigation, to permit awards to be set aside for mere errors on the ground that errors are "outside the powers" of the...
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AFSCME v. Dep't of Children & Families
...must fail because of the panoply of charges that can result from one set of circumstances.In Darien Education Assn. v. Board of Education, 172 Conn. 434, 438–39, 374 A.2d 1081 (1977), this court held that it can examine the merits of an arbitration decision in considering whether the arbitr......
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...See American Universal Ins. Co. v. DelGreco, supra, 205 Conn. at 186, 530 A.2d 171; see generally Darien Education Assn. v. Board of Education, 172 Conn. 434, 374 A.2d 1081 (1977). The AAA itself recognizes the importance of a written submission. The alternative dispute resolution procedure......
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...an arbitrator's egregious misperformance of duty may warrant rejection of the resulting award. In Darien Education Assn. v. Board of Education, 172 Conn. 434, 437-38, 374 A.2d 1081 (1977), we noted that [i]f the memorandum of an arbitrator revealed that he had reached his decision by consul......